September 11, 2008

Writes Glen, a commenter on the first post of the day. That post shows the World Trade Center memorial lights, shortened by a low-hanging cloud, on the evening before September 11th, last year, when I was living in Brooklyn.

You know, it didn't cross my mind that there could be another 9/11 attack today until I read Glen's comment. Do you think there is someone who deserves a little credit for this ease of mind we enjoy?

Another photograph from last year, showing how the lights extend upward when the clouds lift.

90 comments:

"Do you think there is someone who deserves a little credit for this ease of mind we enjoy?"

Of course there is. Given the current political climate, though, he is unlikely to receive it; it may take a generation or two for the credit to be given where it is due. It may never happen. The person who deserves the credit is a big enough human being to understand that and to have gone ahead doing what was necessary whether he got credit or not. Credit was never his goal; peace of mind that we enjoy always was.

Do you think there is someone who deserves a little credit for this ease of mind we enjoy?

Please, please do not turn this into a "Bush protected us"/"No he sucks" argument. Not today, of all days. Can't today, at least, be a day where we can all agree that we face a common enemy in Islamic extremism without descending into partisan bickering about who is or isn't doing a good job fighting that enemy?

For those who haven't already read it, I highly recommend Douglas Feith's "War and Decision" for the best behind-the-scenes account, with some 400 footnotes and 100 pages of endnotes, of 9/11 and the Global War on Terror. You may or may not agree with all of the decisions made, or with the reasoning that led to them, but at least you'll have the actual historical record, to the extent that it has been documented and declassified, to evaluate.

It has been a long time since I was worried about another attack, and I suppose that's nice on one hand and not so much on the other. I feel secure, to which I suppose I can credit the Bush Administration, but I also know that no administration can put a protective bubble over us all forever.

I remember that seven years ago, in the days after the attack and especially after the anthrax mailings, that I was annoyed that the new season of "Farscape" wasn't starting until January 2002. I wasn't entirely sure we'd all still be around by then.

On the one-year anniversary of 9/11, I went out to the Brooklyn Promenade, which was jammed with people, news crews, and various groups that arrived there to commemorate the day. This morning I went back to the Promenade, which was almost empty. No media, no prayer groups, just a handful of people walking their dogs or jogging past.

A few did stop and look out across the water to where the twin towers used to stand. You could tell which people came there to remember.

My girlfriend's best friend worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and died there seven years ago (long before I met her). It's always a very hard day for her, so I suppose I'm thinking more about her than I am about terrorism.

And here's something I noticed: The Arab kids who go to the middle school on my block sometimes wear a keffiyeh, but it's a pretty occasional fashion accessory compared to sports jerseys. Today I saw five boys walking into school quite showily draped in different colored keffiyehs, which struck me as unusual. I assume it was an in-your-face, don't-blame-me display. Hey, they're well within their rights to wear them, but would a Japanese-American kid put on a rising-sun headband on Pearl Harbor Day?

"Can't today, at least, be a day where we can all agree that we face a common enemy in Islamic extremism"

It would be nice, but my guess is that no it can't. A disturbing number of people are unsure who perpetrated the attacks. A smaller, but even more disturbing (or disturbed), number are sure it was the U.S. government.

Do you think there is someone who deserves a little credit for this ease of mind we enjoy?

Trial lawyers?

Uh, just kidding (and I'm a trial lawyer). I got pleny of complaints about Bush. But it's only fair to acknowledge that his administration did "something" right to prevent another attack, which, back on 9/12/01, virtually everyone thought was inevitable.

Ann, I'd like to use your photo of the lights as an entry on my blog Crossroads Arabia, with full credit, of course. I am not assuming that its presence on Flickr is any sort of waiver of copyright, so I am asking your permission.

People at the top get all the credit, but it's the grunts doing work at the bottom who deserve it. Top-level types deserve credit only if they are setting the proper course that the low-level people follow. Is that what Bush has done? Apparently.

Here's to the low-level investigators, and maybe their bosses, who are (I hope) piecing things together.

Yes. On this day I want to embrace Doyle as my beloved fellow American. I find his opinions and comments here offputting, to say the least, but I feel blessed to live in a country where his and my voice stand equal--for any and all to hear.

Hey Drew great to see you posting. You know today I always think of the guys from the Red Hook firehouse who always were in Mastellone's on a Sunday morning buying cold cuts and meat and ravioli for the Sunday dinner. I would always run into them with my mom after church. What a bunch of ball busters. They were always after my mom to give them recipes or help them pick out the best stuff for their dinner. Once she gave them her alomnest broccoli soup with pork recipe and they went nuts.

They are all gone now. Seven years. Good guys. I don’t think it’s so far in the past that they should be forgotten.

My sister found out 4 years ago that her boyfriend from the early 80's died in the North Tower while phoning his wife that he was leaving the building. He taught my sister how to drive a stickshift after they broke up, so he was a decent guy.

Truman now gets credit for fighting the Cold War, despite stalemate in Korea, so there's hope for Bush (of course, he isn't a Democrat).

Yes, by all means, remember my aunt and uncle by marriage, who are not running for office -- but whose son, my beloved cousin, is in harm's way as we speak in Afghanistan.

(I thought long and hard before posting this. I don't want any sympathy for myself, nor really for them. But as Senator Obama said yesterday, enough's enough. I'm tired of this commentariat being so passive in the face of disgusting, low-life trolls)

It is interesting that Beau is the Attorney General of Delaware and still getting deployed. It really undermines the notion that only the powerless serve in the armed forces. Kudos to him for serving in the Guard.

"The Drill SGT said... For me, 9/11 brings back memories of a true Btitish/American hero.

Rick Rescorla, RIP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla

"Lead, Follow, or get the Hell out of the Way!""

Drill SGT, Victoria, and a few others beat me to it. But I want to expand on this: 9-11 is a day to remember people like that man. He had already done enough in his actions in Vietnam at the battle of Ia Drang (the fight immortalized in the book "We Were Soldiers Once... and Young" as well as the Mel Gibson movie with the similar name), but he added to that already impressive accomplishment with his actions on September 11th, 2001.

Those are the people I think of when I mull over 9-11. I think of the victims first, but inevitably I turn to thinking about the people who refused to give in to the natural fear affecting them and everyone else, and who decided to stay behind to help others. Rescorla is one of those people.

"You see, for Rick Rescorla, this was a natural death. People like Rick, they don't die old men. They aren't destined for that and it isn't right for them to do so. It just isn't right, by God, for them to become feeble, old, and helpless sons of bitches. There are certain men born in this world, and they're supposed to die setting an example for the rest of the weak bastards we're surrounded with."

Did you see how emotional Joe was when he hugged his son, when the latter introduced him at the DNC?

For me, that was the most touching moment of either convention. I know today Governor Palin will be saying a few remarks at her son's deployment ceremony. I think she may cry...but I KNOW Joe Biden will, if he sends off his son in public too.

The best way the people lost that day could be respected, would be the comemmoration of Osama bin Laden's capture & trial for mass-murder. Those poor innocent people deserved nothing less.

He is free, they are dead.

The CIA's "OBL Unit" was quietly dismantled years ago.

"Do you think there is someone who deserves a little credit for this ease of mind we enjoy?"

Or a little responsibility for ignoring every single early warning of the horror of that day?

Your ease of mind is that of a sleepwalker - & may you never be forced to awaken by yet another such hideous slaughter. Wake up now, of your own accord, & maybe such a tragedy can be avoided. Stay in the warm embrace of your comforting slumber, & keep hoping you're right, & you may live to regret it.

OBL sleeps with the fishes in Tora Bora. KSM, OTOH, is being repressed at GITMO, experiencing firsthand the violence inherent in the system. No doubt some of you are deeply concerned OBL is free (though dead). If he were captured, you'd bitch about him being imprisoned at GITMO. There's no satisfying some people.

No doubt the Orwellian-monikered "Integrity" is at least pleased that some of those killed at the WTC in his/her tragedy (he/she is an "effin' native New Yorker" after all) were Rethuglican Bush supporters. And I sure as Hell won't take back what I just asserted about you, so don't even fucking think of demanding that I do. Asshole. Hole of ass.

AA: I apologize for my comments on this posting, I'll now cease and desist. But there are some foul piles of shit left by others that I can't simply ignore.

Ann, I'd like to use your photo ...I am not assuming that its presence on Flickr is any sort of waiver of copyright, so I am asking your permission."

John, check the Flickr page for that photo where it says 'Some Rights Reserved'. It is provided under a Creative Commons by attribution, non-commercial license. So, as long as you give Ann credit and don't make money off the use, you are free to use it wherever you like.

Holy shit -- I never realized the Rick Rescorla from the WTC was the same guy from Hal Moore's book. What an amazing man. He was the sort of person who makes you embarrassed you haven't done something more with your life.

No doubt the Orwellian-monikered "Integrity" is at least pleased that some of those killed at the WTC in his/her tragedy (he/she is an "effin' native New Yorker" after all) were Rethuglican Bush supporters. And I sure as Hell won't take back what I just asserted about you, so don't even fucking think of demanding that I do. Asshole. Hole of ass.

Don't confuse me with the apology seekers. Are there actually people who ask for apologies for online comments?

The name is Michael. I posted it once when I was making fun of Vicsnoria.

Cheers, Michael

Memba.

P.S. Manhattan voted against Bush in 2004 by about a 50% margin.

The tragedy has been used as right-wing propaganda since the day it happened, how can anyone from the right expect anything other than hostility. Ridiculous.

Thank you, President Bush for doing what was right. In the months after 9/11, we all kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. I would hear my alarm go off in the morning and listen not to what voices were saying, but the tone. If the tone was okay, I knew we'd gone another day without another attack.

So, Thank you, George W. Bush.

And, excuse me. I never talk this way, but just for today: fuck the lot of you who disagree.

"Revenant said... Holy shit -- I never realized the Rick Rescorla from the WTC was the same guy from Hal Moore's book. What an amazing man. He was the sort of person who makes you embarrassed you haven't done something more with your life."

Yeah, Revenant, I know. I recall hearing about that man after 9/11 and thinking "that was one hell of a man". But I never did connect him with the Battle of Ia Drang - which I'd known about from reading "We Were Soldiers Once..." years earlier - until someone pointed out it was the same guy.

I need to dig my copy of that book back out. It's somewhere on one of my multple shelves hidden in a stack somewhere... anyway, yes, that's one amazing person. That's why I always end up thinking about him when I think about the victims, as well as other people involved in 9/11. Just a few come to mind unassisted - Father Mycal Judge, the priest who was killed by South Tower debris while giving last rites to victims inside the North tower (and also I can't forget the Reuters photo of the first responders carrying his body out)... Betty Ong, because of my hobby of refuting conspiracy theories (she's known to CT's because of the Airfone calls she made from Flight AA 11)... Colin Scoggins, who's not a victim but rather a Boston Center Air Traffic Controller who had a very unique front row seat on that day's events, and who also was responsible for what fighter coverage that did end up getting airborne by busting his butt to get the right people informed (heroism happens in ways unexpected, and outside the main thrust of events too)... of course, everyone remembers Todd Beamer... and Rescorla. It's hard not to think of those people - who to the best of my knowledge didn't know each other - and the way that this event connected their lives.

For Doyle, Integrity and rest of the fools that want to take a national tragedy and reduce it to bile and scorn, you are sorry examples of humanity. Genuinely sorry, craven pieces of shit. Fortunately for you, there is a better class of American out there: the soldiers that go in harms way to keep you free to spout your noxious bullshit. You don't deserve them. You arent fit to lick their boots.

Oddly enough, Michael, I feel that I should indeed apologize (and had come to this realization on the long drive home). On reflection, I feel I was uncivil and inappropriate, regardless of how strongly I disagreed with your comments. I allowed my anger and indignation at your comments, as well as anger and resentment that I am currently feeling over a number of other unrelated things in my life, to cloud my judgement and spill over into my comments. I do apologize to you, and to everyone else here.

Crimso--please dont bemoan your apology--like you have apologized to the posters I felt I personally attacked--and to a man (or woman) they have not had the human decency to say thank you or accepted or otherwise acknowledge your act of contrition. They are simply ill mannered scum and not worthy of apology. A human being who is incapable of acknowledging an act of contrition is not really a human being. Human decency is not something they have within them.

Wait: I do do need to acknowledge two: Alpha Liberal and Trevor Jackson. Thank you both.

No attacks, yeah, but at the cost of the Constitution, our civil rights, and the deaths of thousands of innocent people simply because of their religion and skin color. Which is exactly what Bush and Israel had it mind when they planned 9/11.

I'll bet there are some people who read that comment and agreed with every word. Dopes.

Do you think there is someone who deserves a little credit for this ease of mind we enjoy?

Yes, our armed forces.

Re: the above comment.

More phony "more patriotic than thou" leftist attacks from the right.

Of *course* the armed forces deserve huge credit.

But the truth is that unfortunately they wouldn't mean a damned thing if a Carter (or Clinton, or Kerry or Obama) had them sitting on their hands.

Lately -- and I am *not* equating them -- I have been increasingly struck by some of the parallels between Presidents Bush and Lincoln, in terms of the scorn and opposition heaped on a presumed bumpkin, who nevertheless had guts and vision in spades when it counted.

"You know, it didn't cross my mind that there could be another 9/11 attack today until I read Glen's comment. Do you think there is someone who deserves a little credit for this ease of mind we enjoy?"

I didn't think about it until I read this posting. And 9/11 was on my mind all day yesterday and today.

But not as a threat, apparently.

Credit? That is a comp[lex question, actually.

Some people can be named, like the President, and the current military leadership, but there is an intangible too, an attitude, or something, that They Wouldn't Dare!

I think after his term ends, Bush is highly likely to retire to Crawford and pretty much never be heard from again.

Recall Truman's "popularity ratings" at the end of his tenure, as well as his having borne the weight of the decision to use the atomic bombs on Japanese cities, which despite the clarity with which he spoke about it at the time, had to be a heavy burden (as must any time when a leader orders tens or hundreds of thousands to their death, knowing that innocents will also be killed). When Eisenhower took the helm, Truman went back home to Independence, Missouri, and back to a quieter, simpler life.

Unlike Reagan, Clinton, and Bush 41, W probably won't be going out and doing the international speaking circuit (although I'd imagine he'll be in demand in parts of the middle east and Africa, where he's very popular). Unlike Nixon, he probably won't be writing academic tomes on foreign policy and the international relations game.

I'm predicting that people won't see much of W after the '09 inaugural, and that he'll probably be quite happy if that's the case.